I just wanted to give you a heads-up on one-day seminar with me in Indianapolis, IN on Sunday, November 11, 2018.

We’ll be spending the day geeking out on shoulders, as the event will cover Shoulder Assessment, Corrective Exercise, and Programming. The event will be geared toward personal trainers, strength and conditioning professionals, rehabilitation specialists, and fitness enthusiasts alike.

Note: we'll be capping the number of participants to ensure that there is a lot of presenter/attendee interaction - particularly during the hands-on workshop portion - so be sure to register early, as previous offerings of this evan have sold out well in advance of the early-bird registration deadline.

I missed a week of this weekly recap in light of the big Sturdy Shoulder Solutions sale last week, so I've had a chance to stockpile some good stuff for you. Before we get to it, a friendly reminder that tonight at midnight is the early-bird registration deadline for the Cressey Sports Performance Fall Seminar. You can learn more HERE.

With the fall seminar in mind, I want to highlight some content from our presenters:

It's often been said that anything can be fixed with duct tape and WD-40. And, as a guy with extremely limited handyman skills, I really like this flowchart.

Source: http://laughingateverydaylife.com/2016/07/duct-tape-vs-wd40/

While this might seem like a dramatic oversimplification with respect the human body, I think there are actually some noteworthy parallels. To prove this, let's take a look at a study my buddy, Mike Reinold, co-authored back in 2008. While they looked at range of motion changes in professional pitchers after an outing, the findings of the study that I always keep coming back to have more to do with the absolute range of motion numbers in the data set (moreso than the changes). Take a look:

Looking at the mean shoulder total motion pre-throwing, MLB pitchers averaged about 191 degrees. However, when you look at the standard deviation of 14.6 degrees, you'll see that there were guys down around 175 degrees (very hypomobile or "tight"), and others up around 206 degrees (very hypermobile or "loose").

Speaking very generally, the tight guys need more WD-40 (range of motion work), and the loose guys need more duct tape (stability training). Now, here's what you make your mark as a coach: identify the exceptions to this rule.

For example, when you have an otherwise "tight" guy who comes back from a long season in with a significant range of motion increase at a joint, it could mean that he's developed instability (e.g., blown out a ligament). Or, maybe you see an otherwise "loose" guy who has lost a considerable amount of range of motion, it could mean that he's really hanging out in a bad pattern, developing musculotendinous shortness/stiffness that "overpowers" his ligamentous laxity. Or, he might be really out of alignment, or have developed a bony block.

Identifying outliers - exceptions to the rules - is a crucial part of evaluation success and subsequent programming. As I've often said, don't just focus on average.

Speaking of lessons to be learned in managing overhead throwing athletes, this will actually be a topic I expand upon at the upcoming fall seminar at Cressey Sports Performance - Massachusetts. We've got a great lineup, and the early bird registration deadline is this Fridya, September 21. You can learn more HERE.

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I see some of the lowest shoulders in history. This is a well-muscled guy who looks like his upper traps are non-existent because he sits in such significant scapular depression. Take note of the angle of his clavicles; normally, they should have an upslode from the sternoclavicular joint to the acromioclavicular joint, but in this case, they're actually downsloped. Wherever the scapula goes, the collarbone follows. In this presentation, expect to see tissue density in lats, subclavius, and scalenes (among other areas).

The most interesting discussion point, though, is what to do about that upper trap tightness. That tightness is protective tension: his body doing anything it possibly can to avoid dropping any lower into scapular depression. The upper traps are working to elevate the scapula against gravity all the time. If you give him a bunch of massage and stretching, it's like picking a scab; he'll feel better for 15 minutes, and then in rougher shape over the long haul. You never want to stretch out protective tension.

He'd had previous bouts of unsuccessful physical therapy, and while I had the benefit of hindsight here, it was clear that the unifying theme of these approaches was an emphasis on the one-size-fits-all "pull the shoulder blades down" cue that gets thrown around all too much and usually leaves this presentation in a tough spot while helping a lot of senior citizen rotator cuff pain cases. You can't one-size-fits-all cues because everyone moves differently.

We modified his training to avoid anything with heavy weights tugging the shoulders down (no deadlifts, walking lunges, farmer's walks, etc.) and instead trained the lower body with lots of front squat and goblet set-ups, plus sled work, glute-ham raises, and barbell supine bridges/hip thrusts. We cut back on lat dominant upper body work and instead chose drills like push-up variations and landmine presses that drove scapular upward rotation (and even prioritized elevation, which is borderline heresy in some rehab circles). We got his arms overhead more often during the warm-ups and integrated some manual therapy in the areas I noted earlier. I even encouraged him to do less unsupported sitting at work, too, because his upper traps were competing against gravity all the time (yes, there are actually times that standing desks make things worse).

Today, two weeks to the day after the evaluation, he's feeling significantly better - and training hard. Posture is the interaction of structure and function, and if you can't identify aberrant postures, you're simply guessing with how someone is going to respond to a given exercise.

Interested in learning more about what I look for when evaluating the upper extremity - and how my findings drive our programming and coaching cues? Check out Sturdy Shoulder Solutions (which is on sale for $50 off through Sunday at midnight) at www.SturdyShoulders.com.

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Here's another Sturdy Shoulder Solutions sale inspired post. The Modified Pigeon with 1-arm Child's Pose is another new drill we've busted out in our warm-ups to get a little more bang for our buck. It's particularly useful for pitchers, who need to get into their lead hip (adduction) while getting lat length, scapular upward rotation, and apical expansion on the throwing shoulder.

A few big coaching points:

1. You should feel a stretch in the outside of the front hip, but nothing in the knee (particularly the inner part). If you're feeling it in your knee, you've probably set up incorrectly.

2. Think of a stretch along the entire outside of the torso and arm: quadratus lumborum, lats, and long head of triceps, especially. If you pinch at the front/top of the shoulder, ease off it a bit.

3. Breath in through the nose and exhale fully through the mouth as if you're blowing out birthday candles (and hold for a count of three before inhaling again). You should feel your abs turn on as the shoulder stretch increases. Do five breaths.

You can learn more about how I assess, program, and coach at the shoulder girdle - and save $50 through Sunday at midnight - at www.SturdyShoulders.com.

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With this week's $50 off sale on Sturdy Shoulder Solutions, I did a Q&A on my Instagram page the other day, and one of the questions was whether it was ever useful to train shoulder internal rotation. With the lats and pecs (both internal rotators) always getting blasted in a typical strength training program, is any specific work for internal rotation ever recommended? My response warranted a three-part video, which I've compiled into one here:

To learn more about how I assess, program, and coach at the shoulder girdle, check out Sturdy Shoulder Solutions. It's on sale for $50 off through Sunday at midnight.

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With this week’s $50 off sale on Sturdy Shoulder Solutions, I wanted to introduce a new drill I’ve started using. The wall slide with upward rotation and lift-off to swimmers hover effectively blends two schools of thought: Shirley Sahrmann’s work and that of Functional Range Conditioning.

1. With the wall slide portion, we drive scapular upward rotation.

2. With the lift off portion, we get scapular posterior tilt and thoracic extension (as opposed to excessive arm-only motion).

3. With the swimmer hover, we lengthen the long head of the triceps and even drive a little bit more serratus anterior recruitment as the scapula rotated around the rib cage.

Get exposure to multiple philosophies and have an appreciation for functional anatomy, and the exercise selection possibilities are endless. Learn more at www.SturdyShoulders.com.

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Our professional baseball guys are rolling back in to kick off the offseason, so I wanted to offer a sale to celebrate this fun time of year. What better way to celebrate the unofficial start of the baseball offseason than to put my shoulder course, Sturdy Shoulder Solutions, on sale for $50 off through Sunday?

This product includes over six hours of cutting edge assessment, coaching, and programming strategies. You can learn more at the following link (with the discount automatically applied):

It's a great fit for personal trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, sports coaches, and rehabilitation specialists. Additionally, many fitness enthusiasts will appreciate the focus on individualizing programming recommendations and technique coaching strategies.

In particular, it’s a tremendous fit for anyone who has previously been exposed to our Optimal Shoulder Performance and Functional Stability Training products. Sturdy Shoulder Solutions serves as an up-to-date companion to the educational material covered in those previous offerings.

Stacey Hardin on Purposeful Collaboration in Pro Sports - I loved this podcast from Mike Robertson, who interviewed Stacey Hardin of the Minnesota United soccer club. There was some great information on how sports medicine teams should collaborate for the best care for the athletes they serve.

Forget About Squat Depth - This was an excellent JL Holdsworth article about why squat depth should be individualized to each lifter.

Top Tweet of the Week

Putting a baseball team through a bunch of military training to try to build mental toughness doesn’t make you a good leader. On the contrary, it actually makes you an underwhelming exercise physiologist, biomechanist, and sports psychologist. So much for specificity of training.